


you keep me hanging on

by lamujerarana



Category: Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Spider-Man (Comicverse)
Genre: Casual Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Pining, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-10 00:06:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12899757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamujerarana/pseuds/lamujerarana
Summary: Johnny, reeling from his breakup with Medusa and the loss of his entire family, turns to Peter for comfort...that eventually involves casual sex that isn't so casual for Johnny, since he just so happens to be in love with Peter.Everything becomes incredibly complicated.This story takes place between the events of Inhumans vs X-Men #6 and Uncanny Avengers v3 #20.





	you keep me hanging on

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Traincat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Traincat/gifts).



It happens so quickly, Johnny doesn’t even have time to process it.

A setting sun, the soft press of Medusa’s lips to his own, her fingers lovingly caressing his cheek, a few gentle words, and then it’s over.

 _Everything's_ over.

Medusa was all he had left. Sue is gone. Reed is gone. His nieces and nephews...all gone. 

Johnny has never known what it is to be so desperately lonely as he has these last few months, since his entire family vanished, leaving him behind.

Medusa gave him someone to cling to in his grief, somewhere to belong, but now _that’s_ gone too.

As fire erupts across Johnny’s body and he flies beyond the confines of New Attilan for the last time, he realizes that he has nowhere in the world to go.

So he goes to the remnants of the only place he has ever truly belonged: the Baxter Building.

* * *

He remembers the awe he felt the first time he saw the Baxter Building. 

He remembers thinking,  _this can't be right_.

There was so much _space._ Johnny'd never had a room at the top of a skyscraper, in the heart of Manhattan, surrounded by not one but _three_  people who loved and cared about him. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought it would be possible.

Johnny remembers standing at the window of his new bedroom and staring out at New York City, stretched out beneath him, and feeling like a prince. He'd never known life could be this...this _wonderful_. 

He doesn't remember the Long Island home he and Sue lived in with their parents before his mother died.

He knows it only through the stories Sue would tell him at bedtime when they were kids, her soft fingers combing through his hair, voice low and wistful. "There were the most beautiful roses you've ever seen in the garden every summer, red and pink and yellow, roses as big as my hand. If you left your window open when you slept, you could smell their perfume on the wind. I would shut my eyes and pretend I was sleeping on a bed of roses every night. And there was an old maple tree at the end of the yard that would turn the most beautiful colors in the autumn, and if you climbed up it, you could see all the way to the ocean."

"Did I ever climb up it, Sue?" Johnny would ask, with all the innocence of a child.

"No," Sue would tell him. "Sweetie, you were hardly walking."

"And the house was all ours?"

"Yes, just ours."

"The yard too?"

"Yes, the yard too."

Johnny would shut his eyes and try, but he could never imagine what that must be like.

He stopped asking about it the day he was old enough to realize how miserable it made his sister, talking about the home, the family, the life they'd lost.

What he does remember is being wedged into a bedroom in a far-distant corner of Aunt Marygay's boardinghouse, a room that was too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer and hardly large enough even for a six-year-old child's bed.

He remembers Sue starting to work at far too young an age, remembers watching her worry herself sick over bills she couldn't pay, remembers her sobs the day Aunt Marygay told her they couldn't afford to keep sending her to college, remembers feeling that it was his fault, that if she hadn't had to care for him, Sue could have done anything, been anything. She was smart enough. Capable enough. He remembers running away from home to give Sue a chance without him weighing her down, remembers the way she cried and how tightly she held him when she found him at the bus depot, clutching a backpack that had a few old clothes and his favorite comic books stuffed into it haphazardly, half an hour before his bus left.  

He remembers being a burden. That's what he remembers.

Then Reed Richards had burst into their lives like a breath of fresh air, bringing with him joy, wonder, love, family, and excitement, and made the whole  _multiverse_ theirs to explore. Nothing had ever been the same again.

Johnny remembers the night Reed came home to find Johnny crying alone in the dark on the front porch of Aunt Marygay's boardinghouse because the children at school had been crueler than usual, and Sue had been at work all day, and Johnny felt alone, so desperately alone and unloved. He remembers how Reed, exhausted after a long day, but kind, endlessly kind, had sat next to him on the porch steps and listened patiently as Johnny sobbed and told Reed his troubles. Reed had put his arm around Johnny’s slim young shoulders, pointed to a far distant star in the clear night sky, and spun a tale of universes dying and being reborn, of the sheer abundance of life that proliferated in the universe, from minuscule bacteria to wondrous beings the likes of which neither he nor Johnny could ever imagine, of how we were never alone, none of us. Listening there, spellbound, to Reed in the dark, Johnny would have followed him anywhere.

(Reed had a way of looking at the world that Johnny found thrilling, a way of making even the most mundane occurrence seem… _magical_. Reed’s true genius was finding the fantastic even in the ordinary. He could look at a grain of sand and see a whole universe of possibilities.

Johnny wishes he had a mind like that. Then he'd never have to be bored, not ever.

Johnny misses it. Misses _Reed_. Life without Reed around to whisk him away on new adventures is so…dull.

He would give anything to see that smile, breathless with excitement, that Reed would get when he found something new for them to explore, to feel the exhilaration of going somewhere no other human had ever been before. His life had been an endless adventure, full of joy and wonder.

Oh, _those_ were the days Johnny lived for.)

So Johnny _had_ followed Reed, he’d given Reed half of his life, all of his loyalty, admiration, and devotion, and the love he'd never been able to give his real father, and what had it gotten him, what was he left with? Nothing but empty memories.

He was more alone now than he’d been the day he met Reed, because then at least he’d had Sue, then at least he hadn’t known what it was to have a real family or a home to call his own. 

Having nothing is worse when you know what it is to have everything.

* * *

That's the thought that reverberates through his mind as he flies through the streets of Manhattan.

When he arrives, he discovers, much to his dismay, that Peter isn’t there.

He’s not home, and Johnny doesn’t have the energy to search for him. But Peter lives here, and Johnny knows he must return to it eventually.

So he sits on Peter’s sofa, hands clenched tensely in the fabric of his uniform, and he waits.

* * *

Peter’s there, standing in front of him in a  _terrible_ grey suit, with a startling rapidity.

Johnny doesn’t know why he’s here so suddenly, and he certainly doesn’t care. Peter’s _here_ , and that’s enough.

“Buddy,” Peter says worriedly. He falls to his knees on the carpet in front of Johnny and reaches up to tilt Johnny's face up so he can gaze searchingly into his eyes, “are you okay?”

Johnny’s mouth is a graveyard. Filled with dust and bones and ash. “Yes,” he manages to say. “Yes. No.”

“Something bad happened,” Peter says, like he knows, but how could he? He takes Johnny's hands in his own and squeezes. “Johnny, are you hurt?”

Johnny’s mouth works. He’s trying to figure out how to tell Peter—he’s not hurt physically, but the wounds Johnny is riddled with, though intangible, are far deeper and far more insidious.

Peter’s hands tighten around Johnny’s, and his voice grows more urgent. “Johnny, buddy, are you hearing me? I need you to tell me if you’re hurt.”

Johnny twists his hands over so that he can clasp Peter’s hands within his own. They’re real, they’re solid, they’re something to hang onto, to cling to for dear life. It gives him the strength to say, “No. No, Pete, nothing like that.”

Peter’s deadly seriousness subsides into relief. He lets go of Johnny’s hands and rises to his feet, and Johnny’s hands slip away, leaving Johnny adrift on a roiling sea once more with nothing to anchor him.

Peter unbuttons his suit jacket and sits on the couch next to Johnny, so close their knees are nearly touching. “Then what?”

“M-Medusa,” Johnny says. He notes, distantly, uninterestedly, the hoarseness of his own voice. It feels almost as though this is all happening to someone else. “Dumped me.”

“Oh,” Peter says, face falling, “oh, buddy, I’m so sorry. I know how much she meant to you.”

He squeezes Johnny’s shoulder then as if he’s trying to say, “It’s all right, I’m here, I’m here.”

That small kindness, that small show of concern, is too much right now. Something breaks inside of Johnny. He can feel the tears welling up in his eyes. “Why?” he says shakily, scrubbing furiously at those irritating tears with the heel of his right hand. He hates crying in front of Peter, so why does it feel like it happens so often? Peter is always, always there for Johnny when he truly needs him, and he always has been. “Why do the people I love always leave me? Pete, what am I going to _do_ now? There’s no one left. There's nothing left. I don't have anything. Everything I did, everything I’ve given up, none of it _matters_.”

“Hey, hey,” Peter says, and the squeeze of Peter’s hand on Johnny’s shoulder becomes the weight of Peter’s arm encircling both, “you’ve still got me, Johnny. I’m not going anywhere.”

Johnny’s laugh is hollow and despairing. “Is that a promise? Because I’ve heard that before. Reed, Sue, and Ben all promised the same, and they all left me. I didn’t—Peter, I didn’t even get the chance to say goodbye. They were all just…gone. Like I didn’t even matter enough for them to—”

Words fail him. How can Johnny convey the pain of losing his entire family in the space of a few weeks, his whole life unraveling, everything he had bled and fought and died for all his life, all for nothing? After fifteen years spent protecting the Earth, Johnny was left with nothing to show for it save for a paltry few thousand dollars in his bank account and a warehouse full of a few relics no one gave a damn about anymore, despite everything the Fantastic Four had done for them, for the city, all they’d sacrificed.

It wasn’t worth it. That’s all Johnny can think. Nothing was worth the loss of his family.

Peter’s arm tightens around Johnny’s shoulder. “They never would have left you if they’d had a choice, Johnny," he says gently, "and I think you know that.”

“Ben did.” They’d hardly been able to look at each other after Reed, Sue, and the kids all disappeared—it had been too painful. Johnny’d still found comfort in the knowledge that Ben was still there, a phone call away, if he ever needed him. But then, one lonely, miserable day, Ben had simply been gone. Johnny’d found out from Cap that Ben’d joined the Guardians of the Galaxy with no intention of ever returning. Johnny hadn’t been enough to keep him on Earth. “Ben did, and he still left.”

Peter’s jaw tightens with what Johnny assumes is barely suppressed rage. “Well. I might just have to have some words—" Johnny knows Peter well enough to know that “conversation” will involve fists. “—with him about that the next time I run into him. But, Johnny, _I'm_ not going to leave you. That I promise you.”

Johnny wishes he could believe Peter, but he doesn’t. Everyone always leaves him, whether they want to or not. That is his life. The constant pain of abandonment.

Peter bites his lip. "Hey," he says, "have I ever told you the story of how I almost quit being Spider-Man, way back when I started out?"

"No," Johnny says. "Pete, I don't know if I'm in the mood—"

Peter waves a hand to shush him. "Just listen."

Peter tells him a story then, of how he had fought Doc Ock and lost, and, dispirited, had decided he didn't have it in him to be a superhero. Johnny, it seemed, had been called in to help capture Doc Ock after Peter failed, and agreed to speak at Peter's school. 

 _Never give up,_ Johnny had told the assembled group of starstruck teenagers. _Ability alone isn't enough._

"I'm sure you don't even remember it," Peter says, "but, Johnny, it changed my life. _You_ changed my life. Helped me learn how to be a hero when I had no one else to look up to. I've never forgotten your speech, and I never will. I'm sure there are hundreds _—_ thousands, millions, even—of people out there who can say you've touched their lives the same way. So you _have_ made a difference, Johnny. You do make a difference. Every time you put on your uniform and go out and save some lives, you make a difference. Your flame didn't force you to become a hero. You _chose_ to become one because you knew it was right, because you wanted to help people, and you keep choosing to be one every day. Everything you did wasn't for nothing, and it did matter. _You_ matter. And...you shouldn't give up, just because things are hard right now. _You_ taught _me_ that. You just have to have faith, Johnny. Your family is coming back."

“Right,” Johnny says. He sags into the comforting, familiar heat of Peter’s body and wishes he could lose himself in it forever. He wishes he could see himself the way Peter does, but he doesn't. Deep inside, he still feels like that lonely, unloved little boy, crying his eyes out alone in the dark, except that now there's no Reed to guide and comfort him.

“Hey,” Peter says, tilting Johnny’s chin up so that he’s gazing into a pair of warm, concerned hazel eyes, mere inches away. “Just. Tell me something I can do to help. I want to help you, Johnny. I care about you. So just—just tell me. Do you feel like you need anything?”

“I feel…” Johnny begins and then falters. Hollow. Alone. Abandoned. Unloved. “Hungry,” he settles on.

Peter brightens. “Now that I can do something about. Anything you want. The best in the city. Nothing's too good for you. You just have to name it. I'll swing anywhere—”

"No!" Johnny says, a little too quickly, a little too forcefully.

Peter raises his eyebrows, surprised.

"Don't—don't go anywhere."

Peter's still for a beat as he processes that, but then he nods. "I'll stay right here. I promise."

“Pizza,” Johnny says. “Pizza is fine.”

“Ray’s?”

Johnny sighs irritably. Not this again. “Peter, I don’t care where it’s _from_ , just get me pizza.”

“But Ray’s is the best in—”

The withering glare Johnny sends his way is enough to silence Peter.

“Pizza,” Peter nods and pulls out his cell phone. “On it. But don’t think we’re not continuing this conversation later, young man. It's important to me that you know that Ray's is the best. And where it is. The right one, I mean.”

Johnny sighs. He has no idea why Peter is so obsessed with that place. It’s just pizza. What’s the difference?

He's tried telling Peter that repeatedly, but Peter will grow increasingly scandalized until he tells Johnny that he doesn't understand because he's from Long Island, which he says as though it's the most insulting thing he can think of.

True New Yorkers, he'll tell Johnny, have a more refined palate.

There are times when Johnny understands, he really does, why so many people loathe Peter.

* * *

They turn on Peter’s absurdly large television while they’re waiting for the pizza to arrive. There’s an old science fiction film on that Johnny’s never seen before, but Peter swears by, so he agrees to watch it. Maybe it’ll distract him.

And it does! It does. With a belly full of pizza and beer from Peter's fridge—the only thing Peter has in his fridge, and it was Johnny's turn to be scandalized then, although he was less surprised than he should have been—Johnny begins to feel better.

They fall asleep there, on the couch, a half-eaten pizza spread out on the coffee table in front of them, and when Johnny awakens in the middle of the night to find that he’s lying half on top of Peter, face mashed into Peter’s chest, Peter’s arms encircling his body almost protectively, he is grateful he’s not alone. Grateful that at least Peter, he hasn’t lost.

* * *

The sting of losing Medusa lessens more and more with every passing day.

* * *

Peter‘s harshness and cruelty towards those who have earned his contempt is matched only by his sweetness and gentleness towards those he loves, and Johnny is bathed in the light of that kindness for weeks.

Johnny doesn’t think he’s ever been more in love with Peter.

* * *

He remembers the day he fell in love with Peter. It was…oh, ten years ago if it's been a day. An ill-advised team-up against the Sandman had ended in the villain’s escape, but Johnny hadn’t cared—Peter had _trusted_ Johnny. Respected him. Treated him as an equal—not as the third-rate kid on the Fantastic Four, as its least valuable member, but as a competent, intelligent hero in his own right. No one had _ever_ done that before.

That was the beginning of it, anyway. Johnny can’t pinpoint the exact moment when the seed that was planted that night blossomed into love. All he knew was that it had.

Johnny had been in love with Peter the way only a teenager could be—he’d been _dizzy_ with it, the mere sight of Peter swinging across the New York skyline enough to set Johnny’s heart ablaze.

They’d spent years locked in a rivalry based, Johnny discovered once they began hanging out regularly, on a series of misunderstandings—Johnny, green with jealousy over Peter’s fame and success as a solo hero, had convinced himself that Peter was a stuck-up showoff and gloryhound, and Peter had thought the same of Johnny.

But, by the night of the Sandman team-up, they’d both matured enough to see that they were more alike than they were different.

Peter _got_ it. Got what it was like to be Johnny. The others—Ben, Sue, and Reed—they were all adults when they got their powers. They’d all had the chance to figure out who they were long before they became superheroes. Johnny hadn’t, and at times it could be difficult to tell where he, Johnny Storm, ended and the Human Torch began. Was there any difference at all?

Johnny and Peter both had the overwhelming responsibilities that came with superpowers and fame forced upon them before they were ready, both were orphans, both knew what it was to be outcasts and losers and freaks, both had recently experienced the earth-shattering loss of their first loves. They had the same sense of humor, they loved the same terrible science fiction movies, the same video games, the same awful fast food—they were _so_ alike.

Johnny could talk to Peter in a way he couldn’t to anyone else. And Peter had no one else he could talk to about being a superhero.

It made Johnny feel less lonely.

Johnny wanted desperately to say something about his feelings, but he knew he had to wait for Peter to say that he had moved past the loss of his nameless girlfriend, that he was okay now, that he was ready to date.

So Johnny waited.

And waited.

Two years he waited…but then Peter had started talking about a girl—he wouldn’t tell Johnny her real name, but Johnny later discovered it was Mary Jane—and Johnny realized he’d missed his chance.

So he did his best to bury his feelings and move on, but it had been hard, so hard, to extinguish a love that had become as much a part of him as his flame.

Throughout the years that followed, it had remained there, burning steadily in the deepest recesses of his heart, flaring into life every time Peter smiled at him, touched him, held him.

But the time to mention it to Peter had never materialized.

It’s too late now. Johnny knows it’s too late. If Peter was ever going to fall in love with him, it would have happened long ago.

Now they’re friends, and that has to be enough for Johnny. He has no choice.

Johnny grew accustomed long ago to never getting anything he truly desires. This is simply at the top of his list.

Some days he tortures himself by thinking about how different—how much _better_ —his life could have been if he’d said something to Peter, way back when they were teenagers, but it’s too late now. He knows it’s too late.

* * *

Johnny stays at Peter’s while he finds a new place to live, not that he does much looking. It’s nice, having Peter around all the time. Peter offers to let Johnny stay with him permanently—there’s a spare room, he points out, and he wouldn’t mind the company.

Johnny says he’ll think about it, but that night, when they’re making dinner together and chortling at Peter’s uncanny knack for ruining everything that doesn’t come out of a can, it takes every ounce of self-control Johnny has not to lean in and kiss him, and that’s when he knows he can’t stay.

The strings that have tentatively been tying his heart together have already begun to fray. If he loses someone else, they will surely snap, and then Johnny’s heart will be rent asunder.

He cannot handle the loss of another loved one, and that’s what would surely happen if Peter ever found out about Johnny’s feelings for him.

* * *

Johnny moves out on a Wednesday, the sky above cloudy and dark, a blustery wind rustling through Johnny’s hair, and he promises Peter that he’ll be back.

Peter’s trying too hard to be cheerful—the jokes have been coming a mile a minute, and that’s a sure sign Peter’s upset.

They’re standing on the front steps of the Baxter Building, the moving truck Peter hired for Johnny resting on the curb behind them, Johnny on the verge of saying goodbye, when the mask slips away. Peter’s eyes soften, he caresses Johnny’s cheek—almost lovingly—and Johnny thinks for one breathless moment that Peter’s going to kiss him.

But he doesn’t. He takes a step back, thrusts his hands into his pockets, smiles thinly, and asks Johnny if he wants to come over on Friday to watch a movie.

Johnny says yes, and shoves the—what _was_ that?—near kiss out of his mind. He must have been projecting, that’s all. It was just wishful thinking.

* * *

The sky roils with storms all that night, a harsh wind whips past Johnny’s windows as he huddles alone in his new, empty, strangely silent apartment and drinks cocktail after cocktail, watching the rain plummet to the earth and waiting for the moment when the renewed pain of his loneliness and grief subsides at last and he can sleep, now that Peter’s no longer there to distract him and keep him company.

Johnny stands at the window and stares out listlessly, and he remembers.

He remembers the day they all moved into the Baxter Building, remembers the way Sue had whooped with laughter, overjoyed at the sight of their new home and said, "Darling, this is _fantastic_!" and the way Reed had beamed at her pleased reaction.

He remembers that night, when they were all sitting around their brand-new dining room table as a family for the first time, eating Chinese takeout out of boxes from a place a couple of blocks over Ben swore by, he remembers his and Ben's gales of laughter when a displeased Sue caught Reed surreptitiously stretching out his arm behind them all to steal the last dumpling, the way Reed's eyes had shone as he talked about his and Sue's vision for what the Fantastic Four could be, what they could come to mean to the world.

He remembers being surrounded by warmth, noise, fun, laughter, and family, he remembers what it felt like to have hope.

He looks around his cold, empty apartment now, and he realizes he has none left.

He downs what's left of his cocktail in one large gulp and presses his forehead against the icy windowpane.

A blinding flash of lightning rends the sky open, illuminating the rooftop across the street.

That’s…strange. Johnny could swear there was a man there, watching him.

He watches the roof intently until there’s another flash of light, and that’s when Johnny sees it. A small, huddled figure on the rooftop directly across from his. It’s too dark to tell, but that looked like…it looked like _Peter_.

Johnny’d know him anywhere. The broad shoulders, the slim, muscular build, the flash of red and blue—it’s unmistakable. But…what’s he doing here? On a night like this? He cannot be stupid enough to be out patrolling.

A healing factor he may have, but it does not protect him from colds.

Johnny decides to fish around and find out. He hears Peter’s familiar personalized ringtone—“We Didn’t Start The Fire,” because Peter thinks he’s so funny—echoed on the wind, and that’s when he knows he’s right.

His knuckles grow white as his fingers tighten angrily around his phone.

“Pete,” he grinds out when he hears Peter pick up, “whatcha doin’?”

“Oh,” Peter says, and Johnny can swear he hears Peter’s teeth chattering, “you know, just…swingin’ around town, wondering why anyone in their right mind would go out in weather like this. The usual.”

“Yeah,” Johnny says, glaring murderously up at the spot where he knows Peter’s hiding, “why are you outdoors? Why are you _here_? You wouldn’t be checking up on me, would you, Parker? Because I don’t need you doing that. I'm not a kid you need to keep tabs on, Peter.”

There’s a pause, and when Peter talks, his voice is even more nasally than normal. “Well, if you put it like that, no, I’m not?”

Peter’s such a terrible liar. “Peter,” Johnny snaps. “You’re an idiot, you know that?”

“You’ve mentioned it before, yeah.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need you looking after me.”

“The fifty cocktails you’ve downed in the last half hour are telling me otherwise.”

That _does_ it. He’s been sitting up there watching Johnny through his window like a—a creep? “Peter. Get in here so I can yell at you in person.”

“Only if you promise not to set me on fire. I happen to be very attached to my skin.”

“Hardy-har. I promise not to set any important parts of you on fire. That’s as far as I’ll go. Hair and eyebrows are fair game.”

Peter sighs wearily. Now he _knows_ he’s in trouble. “All right, all right, on my way.”

Johnny scowls pointedly at Peter as Peter rises to his feet, buffeted by winds and rain on every side, and swings across the boulevard until he’s hanging by the tips of his fingers off the bricks right next to Johnny’s window.

Johnny doesn’t move right away. He glares at Peter through the glass to show how completely furious he is with Peter.

Peter raps his knuckles lightly against the windowpane. “C’mon, Torch," he shouts over the howling winds, "you’re not gonna let me drown out here, are you?”

"I don't know," Johnny shouts back. "I was thinking of seeing if you drowned or turned into a popsicle first."

"Oh, c'mon, Johnny, you can't be that mad!"

"Oh, I'm mad, Peter, I'm very mad!"

Peter cups a hand around his ear. "What was that? Couldn't hear you through that glass. Guess you'd better let me in so you can yell at me."

Johnny should leave Peter out there to freeze out of spite, is what he should do…but it’s Peter, and Johnny is so weak. He jerks the window open a little too hard, a little too wide, and isn’t prepared for the gust of wind and rain that accompanies Peter’s entrance.

Peter swings in and has to help Johnny close the window because it gets stuck that way, and by the time they manage it, there's a puddle of water under the window, and Johnny's soaked to the bone.

It works out okay, though, because Johnny uses the opportunity to raise his body temperature high enough to make the water sizzle and steam off of him, which he thinks—when combined with a pair of crossed arms and a stony expression—is very expressive of his fury.

Peter doesn't seem very intimidated. “Nice place you’ve got here, Torch,” he says, tugging off his mask and hugging his arms to his chest, teeth chattering. “How about a warm-up?”

Oh, Peter’s getting a talking-to first. “Peter. I don't need you playing mother hen. I'm fine! I don’t need you checking in on me every five minutes.” 

"Then why are you drinking so much, Johnny? You only do that when you're upset. Don't forget that I know you, Johnny."

"You _don't_ know me, Peter. You know what I've decided to tell you, and that's it."

"You've decided to tell me a lot about yourself, Johnny, or have you forgotten?" Peter's anger fades and softens into something like concern. "Hey. We're best buddies. Have been half our lives. Won't you at least try to talk to me about it? The whole time you were crashing at my place...after the night you got there, you wouldn't talk about it anymore. You kept pretending you were fine."

"Maybe because I am!"

"Yeah, I know I only drink myself stupid when I'm fine."

That reminds Johnny. He shakes a finger up at the roof Peter'd been stalking him from. "And do not sit out there and watch me like a creep, Peter! That's not okay! Use the door—can you use the door like a normal person? Is that too much to ask?"

"Fine! I'll call from now on."

"Peter, I'm serious, if you're just here to check up on me, you can just stop."

"No," Peter says, "I was freezing and I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I’d stop by and see my old friend the Human Matchstick for a quick warm-up. What are friends for, if not to save each other from dying of hypothermia when it's cold out?”

Johnny sighs. “Pete, be serious.”

“What makes you think I'm not being serious?” Peter counters. “You’re the best space heater I ever met, Torchy, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

“No, no, no, do not be charming at me right now, I am so not done being mad at you.”

He is two seconds away from lighting Peter on fire.

* * *

He ends up lending Peter a towel and some dry pajama bottoms, and eventually, he talks Peter into staying over for the night, citing the bad weather and lack of taxis, because no one else in their right minds is out in this weather.

Unfortunately, there’s only one bed, but it’s big enough for two, and Peter has surprisingly few qualms about sharing.

Peter seems exhausted. He flops down onto his side of the bed, face first, and mumbles, “Hello, Johnny’s bed, so nice to meet you. You and I are going to get veeeeeery friendly.”

Johnny raises the most judgmental of eyebrows from his side of the bed. “Pete, do you want me to leave you two alone? I can step into the other room while you…do your business.”

Peter sighs, rolls over onto his back, and stares up at the ceiling. Johnny has to remind himself not to stare too obviously at Peter’s bare chest.

“No,” Peter sighs. “I’m fine. Just beat. It’s been a long day.” His lips quirk up in a smile. “I had to help my best friend move. He owns a lot of stuff." He frowns. "Too much. Too many things. No one needs that many pairs of shoes.”

“Some of us know how to accessorize, Peter,” Johnny says dryly. “We’re not all fashion disasters like you.”

He raises his body temperature enough to warm up the bed considerably, and he doesn’t miss Peter’s pleased sigh at the rush of warmth.

“Yeah,” Peter agrees. “His clothes are kinda nice. On him.”

Johnny smiles. That almost sounded like a compliment. He doesn’t know why, but he asks, on impulse, “Think you’ll miss him?”

Peter’s eyes flick uncertainly over to Johnny, as though he’s not sure why Johnny’s asking—this is uncharted territory for the two of them, certainly. Peter and Johnny…hardly ever talk about their feelings for each other, except under extreme duress. 

“I dunno, he drives me nuts,” Peter admits. “He hogs the bathroom—“

“You have _two_ ,” Johnny interjects. "I don't know why you always needed to use the one I was in."

"Because it was mine! In _my_ bedroom, not yours!"

"It was bigger than mine," Johnny shrugs. "If you'd given me a bathroom with a cabinet big enough to hold all of my hair products, we wouldn't be having this conversation, now would we?"

"Is _that_ why you left?" Peter huffs. "Because I can make your bathroom bigger. I'm rich now, you know. I can afford to remodel."

"No, Pete, that's not why I left. It was just time to go. I couldn't keep leeching off of you the rest of my life."

Peter throws up his hands. "I don't mind being leeched off of! Really I don't! It means I'm rich enough to be leeched off _of_!"

"Well, _I_ mind doing the leeching," Johnny counters.

"I thought I was family," Peter says, frustrated. "You _said_ I was family. Aren't family members supposed to help each other? Isn't your family who you turn to when you're in trouble?"

"Is that why you're here? To convince me to move back in with you?"

"No. Yes. Maybe."

"I'm not coming back, Peter. I can't."

"Why not?"

"I just." Johnny hunts around for a suitable excuse. "It's just...so hard, living there without them."

It's the best excuse because it isn't really a lie.

It had been hard, taking the elevator up to what had been the residential area when the Fantastic Four lived there, only to find the offices of Parker, Inc. The executive washroom where Johnny's bedroom had once been, the view he had once reveled in hidden behind a thick wall. It had hurt Johnny deeply to see his home bricked over and rebuilt. It still hurts. 

He curls up onto his side, facing away from Peter so that Peter can't see the dark shadow that's fallen across his face,

Peter notices the shift in his mood immediately. “Hey,” he says quickly, reaching out for Johnny. “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t—none of that now, Sparky.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Johnny grumbles, waving him away. “I know. Happy thoughts. I don't know. It’s just hard to even pretend I’m not miserable sometimes, Pete.”

Johnny hears the bedsheets rustle, feels the weight of the mattress shift as Peter scoots towards him across the bed.

“Hey,” Peter tries. Johnny feels the light brush of Peter’s fingers as he tilts Johnny’s face towards him. Johnny looks up, and Peter’s eyes are shining above him in the darkness like twin stars in a night sky, the sort that used to guide the sailors of old toward safe havens. “You never let me finish answering you. I was going to say, ‘He makes me crazy, but I started missing him before he was even out the door.’”

Peter’s face is so close to Johnny’s that he can feel Peter’s warm breath ghosting across his cheeks, and Johnny is overwhelmed by the desire to lean up and steal one kiss, damn the consequences. At least then, no matter what happened, he’d have the memory of Peter’s kiss, the taste of his mouth, and no one could take it away.

Johnny reaches up and cups the back of Peter’s neck and drags him closer. He can feel himself trembling everywhere, even though he’s not cold—how could he be? “Pete,” he breathes, “I want—could we—”

“What, Johnny?” Peter prompts. “What?”

Johnny’s courage fades away. “Oh, what’s the use?” he says, disgruntled, and rolls over, away from Peter. “There’s no point.”

Peter doesn’t love him. If he did, he’d have mentioned it years ago, so what’s the use in saying anything?

He tugs the sheets up over his shoulders and buries his face in his pillow.

“Johnny,” Peter says urgently, hands hovering over Johnny’s shoulders, as though he wants to touch but doesn’t dare, “what were you going to say?”

Johnny scrunches his eyes more tightly shut. “Nothing,” he says shortly. “Doesn’t matter. Go to sleep, Peter. Don’t you have work tomorrow or something?”

Peter’s motionless for a second, but then Johnny hears the thud of the mattress as he flops down on his side.

“Yeah,” Peter says softly, skeptically. “Sleep.”

* * *

Johnny falls asleep not long after. His slumber is fitful at best. He doesn’t remember much from that night.

But he does have the strangest memory—he doesn’t know if it’s dream or reality—of being caught somewhere in that nebulous space between sleeping and waking, of pale morning sunlight streaming in through his thin curtains, of Peter sitting on the bed in his Spidey suit, watching him sleep, lovingly brushing the hair away from his face, pressing a gentle kiss against his forehead, and whispering a few tender words Johnny can’t remember.

Peter’s long gone by the time Johnny wakes up, his side of the bed cold and abandoned, the only signs of his presence the indentation left in Johnny’s pillow and the tousled sheets.

Johnny’s sure it was a dream.

* * *

Johnny doesn’t see Peter again until their movie night that Friday.

He doesn’t ask about his strange dream. There’s no point.

Johnny can’t remember the last time he laughed so hard. Come to think of it, he can’t remember the last time he laughed. But, then again, Peter’s always had an uncanny knack for teasing a laugh out of Johnny, and tonight, he’s in particularly fine form.

Granted, the scifi flick Johnny chose for them to watch isn’t exactly the best either of them has ever seen, but mocking the hastily put-together sets, shoddy costumes, and terrible acting is half the fun, not that the copious amounts of wine he and Peter have been drinking all evening has exactly hurt.

“C’mon,” Peter says, snickering and waving a hand at the television screen, “you’ve been from one end of the universe to the other. Tell me, have you ever seen aliens who look like whatever the hell that’s supposed to be?”

Johnny squints at the strange, tiny, birdlike aliens on the screen that look like they walked right out of a Dr. Seuss book. He knows it isn’t what Peter wants to hear, but. “Hate to break it to you, buddy, but yes.”

Peter’s eyes widen. “No!”

Johnny nods. “Sorry.”

“You’re kidding. How did you keep from laughing every time you looked at them?”

“I didn’t? Reed and S—” He can’t bring himself to say her name, to talk about her so casually. It feels disrespectful, somehow. “Well. Anyway. They weren’t happy with me. Or Ben. We laughed so hard we almost started a war, buddy. Earth almost got destroyed because Ben and me couldn’t stop laughing.”

Oh, those were the days. Johnny misses going on weird adventures.

Peter’s squinting at him. “Nope,” he decides. “I don’t believe you. Sounds made up.”

“Most of our adventures sound made up, Peter.”

“I never make up anything.”

Johnny raises both hands to signal his surrender. “Suit yourself. But it’s true!”

Johnny doesn’t mention the several dozen stories Peter tells that Johnny is certain are embellishments. He still doesn’t buy the one about the six arms. He’s seen Peter shirtless, and there are no scars whatsoever where Peter says the arms were.

Peter digests that for a beat. “Well, but. How would the filmmakers even have found out they existed?”

“Robots.”

“What?”

“They hide in robots. On Earth. They love Hollywood. They don’t have movies on their planet, and they’re obsessed with ours.”

“Oh, come _on_. I am not falling for this, Johnny.”

“Pete. You can stick to walls like a spider and I light on fire without dying but _this_ sounds fake?”

Peter’s mouth works, but he genuinely does not seem to have an answer for that. “Hmph,” he says and falls silent.

Johnny waits just long enough for Peter to think it over and possibly begin believing him to say, “Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“I made up the part about the robots.”

Peter’s head whips over. “You _what_?”

Johnny laughs. “I had you!” he crows. “Admit it, you _loser_ , I had you!”

“Oh, no, Torch, you did _not_ have me! I did _not_ believe you! That was not the face I make when I believe people, that was my skeptical face!”

“I’ve seen your skeptical face, and this was definitely your ‘I believe every word coming out of your mouth, Johnny’ face.”

Peter gives up denying it. He scowls. “I’m gonna get you for that, Matchstick, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Johnny isn’t particularly worried. Whatever terrible prank Peter’s plotting, Johnny can handle it. Hell, it could even be fun. Just like the pranks they used to play on each other when they were kids. “Have you ever considered becoming a super villain? Because you sound just like one.”

“I think this is how I’m going to end up becoming one,” Peter laments. “One night of putting up with you is enough to accomplish what fifteen years of a whole city hating me couldn’t.”

“Also, all of the getting hit in the head can’t have helped,” Johnny can’t resist adding.

Peter’s eyes narrow dangerously, and Johnny beams in response.

“My head’s fine,” Peter sniffs. “I absolutely never forget things for no reason.” He frowns. “Who are you, again?”

“Your landlord. And your rent’s overdue. Pay up.”

“Yeah, well,” Peter says good-humoredly, “my water pressure sucks, the fridge hasn’t worked right since I moved in, and this paint job gives me nightmares. Fix those and then I’ll pay you.”

“I don’t know all that much about how rent works,” Johnny says, “but I don’t think that’s it.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “How’s it going at the new place, anyways?”

Johnny shrugs. “Okay. It’s not as good as living in the Baxter Building.”

“Less bad guys to set on fire?”

“See? You get me.”

* * *

There’s one specific actor in the movie that Johnny and Peter both loathe. He’s handsome, but his delivery is wooden and he occasionally seems to forget what to do with his hands.

“Well,” Peter says, frowning at the screen during a particularly heated love scene, “at least we know why he got the part now.”

“What?”

“He’s…a good kisser?”

Johnny looks skeptical. “Pete, that is not what a good kiss looks like.”

“They put it in the movie, so it can’t be that terrible.”

“Yeah, remember the bird aliens?”

Peter winces. “Ouch. You got me. They _were_ terrible.”

“And so is this guy’s kissing. He kisses like he’s the guy’s brother, not his lover.”

“Well, hey now,” Peter frowns. “Sometimes those people can work on their kissing and get better. Maybe get some advice from tall, beautiful redheads. Hypothetically.”

That seemed…oddly specific. “Peter,” Johnny grins, “did someone tell you you kissed like their brother?”

“No,” Peter says. “That was hypothetical. I even said so. That’s how that works, right?”

“So you’re a terrible kisser,” Johnny nods. “Why am I not surprised?” His eyes light up as it occurs to him that the public deserves to know about this, so he picks up his phone and starts typing. “I’m telling everyone I know. It’s going on Twitter, Instagram, everywhere. I can see tomorrow’s tabloids: ‘Famous CEO or World’s Worst Kisser?’”

“Johnny,” Peter complains, “have a heart! I’ll never get a date again!”

“You don’t get dates now,” Johnny says. “When was the last time you went on one?”

“Does taking Anna Maria out for donuts count?”

“No.”

“Then I plead the fifth.”

“So give me one good reason why I shouldn’t tell people you can’t kiss,” Johnny challenges, fingers hovering over the send button on his Twitter feed.

Peter thinks it over. “I can prove I’m a good kisser?”

“How?” Johnny counters. “We’re so not calling your ex-girlfriends at this hour. On a Friday night. No one’s gonna answer you, Pete, old buddy.”

“Well,” Peter says. “Uh. I could always…kiss you?” The words start tumbling out in a rush. “If it’s okay. Just to prove that I’m good at it. So you don’t ruin my reputation. It won’t be a real kiss or anything.”

“What?”

Peter seems to confuse his shock with disgust. “Look,” he explains, more slowly this time, “if you let me kiss you, I can _prove_ I’m great at kissing. I know it’s weird because we’ve been friends for so long, but I think I deserve a chance to clear my good name.”

Johnny realizes his mouth is hanging nearly to the floor. “You’re serious? This isn’t a prank?”

“No prank,” Peter says. He holds up three fingers of his right hand in a crude imitation of a Boy Scout’s pledge. Johnny is certain Peter has never been in the Boy Scouts in his life. Peter and Mother Nature do not mix. “Spider’s honor.”

“You…really want to kiss me?”

“Just to prove I’m good at it. So you won’t smear my good name all over town and make it so I can never get a date again.”

So Peter just wants to kiss him so he can date other people. Who aren’t Johnny.

This sounds like a terrible plan.

Maybe it’s all of the wine he’s had, maybe it’s the fact that he’s been dreaming about kissing Peter since he was a kid, but, against his better judgment, Johnny says, “Why the hell not?”

It’s Peter’s turn to be surprised. “Really? You’d let me kiss you?”

“Yeah,” Johnny says, doing his best to pretend it’s not a big deal, even though it is, it _is_ , this is the best thing that’s happened to Johnny all _year_. “Whatever. It’s just a kiss. Gotta…give you a chance to clear your good name, right?”

“Right,” Peter says, and then he gets to his feet and holds out his hand to help Johnny up.

“Oh,” Johnny says. He can’t believe this is happening. Part of him is expecting this to be one of those prank shows. “We—we’re standing for this, okay.”

He takes Peter’s hand—it’s coarse and rough from all of the webslinging—and Peter pulls him to his feet easily, and he doesn’t stop pulling until Johnny is close enough to kiss.

Johnny’s hands are trembling where they’re clutching the soft cloth of Peter’s t-shirt tightly, his heart racing.

Peter presses his forehead against Johnny’s and smiles. “Torchy, calm down. What’re you so nervous about?”

“I’m not nervous,” Johnny says, breath mingling with Peter’s. “I’m afraid you’ll be so bad at kissing it’ll give me nightmares.”

Peter laughs, and it makes his eyes crinkle up in the corners, and it’s cute, so cute, and Johnny wishes for the thousandth time that Peter was his.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that, Johnny.”

“Minus ten points for taking so long to get to the actual kissing, Parker,” Johnny jokes. “Kissing involves, you know, actual kissing.”

“Are you grading me now?” Peter asks, amused. “I didn’t know I was being graded. I always did pretty well on tests, you know.”

“Oh, I’ll just bet you did, Peter Parker,” Johnny says irritably. “I’ll just bet you—”

He doesn’t get to finish being annoyed at Peter, because Peter, annoyingly, decides that’s the perfect time to kiss him.

Jerk.

Peter’s…not great. Too tentative, too unsure. He keeps his hands very politely on Johnny’s waist, and the kiss is no less respectful. It’s…not hot.

Peter loosens his hold on Johnny and takes a step back.

“So?” Peter says, reaching back to scratch at his back nervously. It pulls his t-shirt up enough to expose his six-pack abs, which Johnny wants framed on his wall. “How’d I do?”

“Terrible. You suck.“

Peter’s eyebrow goes up. “I was shooting for ‘good.’ Maybe even ‘amazing.’”

Johnny makes a face. “Pete, hate to break it to you, buddy, but that…was maybe an ‘F.’” He amends that to, “Minus.”

“I’ve never gotten a ‘F’ in my life,” Peter says indignantly. “Except in those classes I missed because I never went to them, but those don’t count.”

“Well,” Johnny shrugs. “I don’t know what to tell you, pal, but you have now. Damn. You—you’re really bad at kissing, Peter.”

“Well, what’d I do wrong? There’s always room for improvement, right, teach?”

“You kissed me like…” Johnny hunts around for the perfect way to describe it. “…you were my brother.” He nods. “Yup. Mary Jane was right. Maybe _don’t_ kiss me like that. You gotta put more ‘oomph’ in it, Peter!”

“‘Oomph,’” Peter says, clearly lost. “Uh-huh. Right. I know exactly what that very vague nonsense word means. Doesn’t everybody?”

Ugh. Why does he make everything so difficult? “Kiss me like you can’t live without me,” Johnny tries. He snaps his fingers. “I know! Pretend I’m someone you’re in love with! Just. Remember what it feels like.”

Peter laughs a little too hard at that, like what Johnny said is hilarious for some reason Johnny’s not privy to. “Yeah,” Peter says. “I think I can definitely do that.”

He steps forward and settles his hands on Johnny’s waist. Respectfully. Ugh. This is gonna be no good, isn’t it? He’s so bad at this it’s almost painful. If Johnny didn’t love Peter so damn much, this would be a complete letdown.

“So I can kiss you again? You don’t mind if I…” Peter’s fingers dig into Johnny’s waist. “…move my hands this time?”

What difference are hands going to make if his kissing is so awful? “Yes, Peter, you can— _mmmmph_!”

He’s interrupted when Peter kisses him again. Johnny’d complain about not getting to finish his sentence, but Peter’s kissing him, and, well…what was he saying?

This time, Peter’s kiss is slow, deliberate, thorough. It’s as though Peter’s trying to memorize the taste of Johnny’s mouth, every curve, every dip, and Johnny can’t stifle a gasp when Peter takes a step closer, until he is pressed flush against Johnny, all lean muscle and arms strong enough to break Johnny in two holding him with a startling amount of gentleness, nor a moan when Peter’s hands begin to roam high up under Johnny’s shirt.

It’s heady and exciting, and Johnny’s knees go weak when Peter deepens the kiss, tongue delving inside Johnny’s mouth. Johnny clings to Peter’s shirt to steady himself.

Johnny wonders who it is Peter’s imagining, who it is he longs to be kissing instead of Johnny.

Johnny doesn’t know, but whoever it is, Peter—Peter must _love_ them. Deeply. Passionately. Want them in all the ways Johnny wishes Peter wanted him.

Something inside of Johnny that he hadn’t even known was there flickers and dies. It feels like…the last small bit of hope Johnny’d been holding onto that Peter would someday return Johnny’s love. Whoever it is Peter loves so completely, Johnny doesn’t stand a chance against them. He’s already lost.

That’s why this kiss is…is _everything_. Peter will tell the person he loves how he feels, they’ll love him back because how could they not, and this will be all Johnny has left of Peter—the memory of a kiss meant for someone else.

Johnny wants to remember everything about this moment, so he can live in it when he has nothing else of Peter left.

By the time they break apart, they’re both flushed and out of breath.

There’s a beat where they stare at each other, neither quite knowing what to say, and then Peter lets Johnny go and steps back, and Johnny feels bereft and abandoned now that he is no longer surrounded by the heat of Peter’s body.

“Well,” Johnny says awkwardly, trying to hide that he’s still trying to catch his breath and half afraid his knees will give out entirely. “That was…better.”

Peter squints. “But was it _better_ or was it _good_? Do I pass the Johnny test?”

“Sure,” Johnny says recklessly. With flying colors. “Why not?”

Peter seems pleased.

In the weeks that follow, Johnny turns this moment over and over in his head, wondering where he found the courage. He doesn’t know. All that he does know is that, on impulse, he says, “Hey, Pete? How would you feel about some pointers on having sex? Since I helped you so much with the kissing.”

Why not? Why not? What has Johnny got left to lose? He already has nothing.

Johnny doesn’t like the delighted smile that spreads across Peter’s face. “You thought the second kiss was great, didn’t you?”

Johnny shrugs. “It was…okay. I guess. I mean, there’s definitely room for improvement.”

Peter catches Johnny by the waist and pulls him closer. The smile hasn’t disappeared. “And now you want to know if I’m as good in bed as I am at kissing.”

Johnny decides to be stubborn. His pride allows him nothing less. So he crosses his arms and tilts his chin up. “No. I just know you haven’t had sex in a long time. Consider this pity sex. I’m doing you a favor.”

Peter snorts. “Right. You’re doing _me_ a favor by asking me to fuck you.”

“Look,” Johnny says, refusing to give Peter an inch. “It’ll be better for you than it is for me, and we both know it. I’m better in bed, Peter, and that’s a fact.”

“I don’t know that, Johnny. Matter of fact, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.”

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

Perhaps realizing that their childish bickering is getting neither of them anywhere, Peter tries a different tack, although it’s one that is no less infuriating. Johnny’s sure he’s being annoying on purpose. “But, hey, Johnny? I want you to know that if we do make sweet, sweet love tonight, I will treat you right. I will rock your world.”

Scornful laughter explodes out of Johnny. “As if, Web-Head, as _if_! You would _try_ ,” he says, punctuating each contemptuous syllable with a jab of his finger.

“Are you doubting me, Torchy? I’m _hurt_.”

Peter is enjoying this too much and desperately needs to be knocked down a peg or twelve. “Yeah, yes, definitely, that is _exactly_ what I’m doing.”

“Hey, I’m _great_ in bed. Spectacular. Sensational. Amazing, even. It’s why they call me the Amazing Spider-Man, you know.”

Make that thirty pegs. “Oh, c’mon, man! You know you’re good _how_?”

Peter makes a show of thinking it over. “I’ve never gotten any complaints?” he settles on as his defense.

“Oh, buddy,” Johnny says pityingly. “Come on. That doesn’t mean anything. They probably didn’t want to hurt your feelings. You can’t kiss but you’re great in bed? I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“That’s not—they _sounded_ like they enjoyed it. And they always, you know—“ He waves a hand in the air as though he is hoping to pluck the right word out of it, like a magician pulling a coin from thin air. “—finished.”

“Seeing as how you can’t even say ‘orgasmed,’ Pete, I seriously doubt that.”

“Orgasmed, orgasmed, orgasmed! See, I can say it.”

“Doesn’t mean you can actually give someone one.”

“Bet you twenty bucks I can give _you_ one. Maybe even two.”

Johnny snorts. “Don’t be too ambitious, Pete. That’s how you end up falling flat on your face. You should know all about that.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh, sure I do.”

“You know because you do it so often.”

“Yeah, I got it, Johnny.” He raises his eyebrows. “So do we have a deal or are you scared that I’m better than you at this?”

“Ha!” Johnny says scornfully. “Deal.”

Peter seals the deal with a kiss—and there’s nothing gentle about it.

He crashes his mouth against Johnny’s and steers them, stumbling, towards his bedroom, shedding clothes in their wake, which would be far simpler if Peter stopped kissing Johnny for a few seconds, but he seems reluctant to.

Peter kisses and kisses Johnny relentlessly until they’re down to their boxers.

“You ready for the big reveal?” Peter asks, fingers hooked in the waistband of Johnny’s black boxer-briefs.

Johnny slips his hands down to Peter’s and does the same. “I am if you are.”

Peter shoves Johnny’s boxers to the floor, and Johnny does the same to Peter’s.

“Hey,” Johnny says, frowning at Peter’s cock, which is definitely longer than Johnny’s. That answers _that_ question. “No fair.”

“So mine is bigger than yours,” Peter says soothingly. “Don’t feel too bad, Sparky. It’s just one of the many ways I am better than you.”

“It’s bigger by like an inch, Peter!” Johnny snaps. “Don’t get smug about it or the only person you’re having sex with is your hand. Is this what you’re like with all of your dates? No wonder you never get any.”

“I’d say it’s more like two inches bigger,” Peter corrects. “But relax. I already knew that. I’ve seen you naked before, remember? And, for the record, no, I don’t treat other people like this. You’re special. Always have been, Torchy.”

Right. Johnny remembers the humiliating incident at the water park. “Ugh,” he says. “Thanks for reminding me, jerk. So why’d you make such a big deal about it if you already knew?”

“I just wanted to make sure _you_ knew.”

Johnny hisses, “Jerk!” and shoves Peter vindictively down onto the bed, but all it does is make Peter laugh and pull Johnny down with him as he goes.

Johnny has no idea how, but Peter manages to twist them as they fall so that, when they land, Peter’s on top, their legs dangling off the edge of the bed.

Johnny’s eyes narrow up at Peter. “Is this how you think this is gonna go down, Parker?”

So Peter thinks he’s going to be on top? Ha, they’ll just see about that.

Peter’s so quick that Johnny’s brain doesn’t have the chance to process his rapid movements—Johnny’s wrists are, all of a sudden, pinned down against the mattress by Peter’s strong hands. Johnny flexes the muscles of his hands and tries to get free, but he can’t. Peter’s too strong.

He pushes up with the heels of his feet, but Peter doesn’t budge—if anything he presses his body down harder against Johnny’s, so that Johnny cannot move at all.

His wide eyes meet Peter’s as it begins to sink in, how completely and utterly helpless he is.

There’s something sharp and predatory about the way Peter’s smiling down at Johnny, as though he is, in that moment, more spider than man, Johnny his thoroughly entrapped prey.

“Who’s gonna stop me from taking whatever I want from you?” Peter whispers against Johnny’s mouth.

Oh, god, oh, god, Johnny was not prepared for Peter being this… _hot_ in bed. No fair. He has always secretly found it thrilling when Peter takes charge, and this is better than anything Johnny had ever imagined, even in his wildest fantasies.

Johnny has never wanted Peter more. He will die of want if Peter doesn’t get around to fucking him soon.

“Shut up and kiss me, you jerk,” Johnny says fiercely, in one final show of bravado.

Peter brushes his lips teasingly against Johnny’s, his fingers tight as a vise, tight enough to bruise, around Johnny’s wrists. “Say please, Matchstick, and maybe I’ll give you what you want.”

Johnny’s swallow is perfectly audible in the silent room.

He chews on his lower lip—should he say it? His pride says no, but the rest of him is saying—no, _screaming—_ yes. “Please,” he says.

“Please what?”

That _does_ it. “Stop being an asshole and kiss me already, Peter, or I swear to god, I’ll—”

Peter kisses Johnny again—no, that’s not what it feels like. Peter’s lips and teeth and tongue are _taking_ pleasure from Johnny, and there’s little Johnny can do save lie there, pliant and willing, so willing to give Peter everything he has, everything he is.

Peter kisses and kisses and kisses Johnny until Johnny’s dizzy, flushed, panting, and moments away from breaking down and begging Peter to please, please, please fuck him.

And then Peter pulls back, and Johnny’s not quick enough to bite down the small noise of dismay before it escapes his lips.

Peter looks him over, and he must be satisfied by what he sees, because he smiles and says, “Now, are you going to be good and do what I tell you to?”

Johnny nods, so painfully turned on he doesn’t trust himself to speak.

“Good,” Peter says, rewarding Johnny with another kiss. “When I let go of your wrists, you’re going to lie down on the bed the right way, and wait for me.”

What? “Wait for you to do what, take a leak? Do you do this to all your dates—”

“Johnny,” Peter chides, “you’re not supposed to ask questions.”

“Says who?”

“Says _me_ , Johnny, and I'm in charge. You _said_ you were going to be good for me. Good means no talking.”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “Fine, fine, fine, I’ll do what you said.”

Peter gifts him with a wet, filthy kiss that is full of promise. “Look, it’ll be worth it. Just trust me.”

“The last time I trusted you, I ended up in a sewer fighting a giant crocodile.”

“Lizard. He’s the _Lizard_ , Johnny.”

“Aren’t crocodiles lizards? I thought they were lizards.”

“What? _No_ , they aren’t.”

“Well, they _look_ like lizards. They _should_ be lizards. We should talk to someone about this.”

“Johnny, no, they shouldn’t and, no, we shouldn’t—look, would you stop? Let’s argue about this later. _After_ I win this bet.”

Right. The bet. If everything that’s happened so far is any indication, Johnny is definitely losing this bet. Dammit. He hates losing to Peter. It’s his least favorite thing in the world.

Peter lets go of Johnny’s hands then and pushes off of the bed. Johnny gets up onto his elbows and appreciates the sight of Peter Parker, naked—the broad shoulders tapering to an impossibly slim waist, the rounded, curvy ass, the hard muscles shifting beneath skin that’s less scarred than it has any right to be, given the beatings and explosions and gunshot wounds Peter’s survived.

This is definitely Peter’s best angle, Johnny thinks, and it makes his mouth water.

Being hopelessly in love with Peter would be so much easier if he was less attractive.

Peter begins rifling through the chest of drawers by the door, although he spares the time to cast an irritated glare in Johnny’s direction. “Johnny,” he says. “Didn’t I tell you to do something?”

Oh. Right. “Yeah,” Johnny says. “I’m getting right on that.”

He doesn’t move, reluctant as he is to tear his eyes away from Peter’s unfairly perfect ass. He should be a model. Johnny could get him gigs. He can’t be the only one who would be willing to pay to see that ass.

“ _Now_ , Johnny,” Peter orders impatiently.

Johnny makes a show of sighing irritably, but he does as Peter says regardless. He scoots back along the bed until he’s sitting up, arms stretched out along Peter’s fluffiest pillows.

When Peter returns, he tosses a bottle of lube and a string of condoms down on the bed next to Johnny.

Johnny’s eyes sparkle with amusement. “Really think you’ll be needing all those, Pete?”

The corner of Peter’s mouth ticks up. “Shut up,” he says, and climbs on the bed.

Johnny gasps and scrambles for something to hold onto—the headboard, sheets, a pillow, anything—when Peter grabs his hips without any warning and drags him down the mattress.

Peter’s hands slip up the backs of Johnny’s thighs as he spreads Johnny open wide and bends him in half, shoving his legs up, and tells Johnny, “Hold those for me.”

Johnny reaches out with shaking fingers and holds himself open for Peter—he feels as though the most intimate parts of his body are on display for Peter, and it is thrilling.

Johnny bites his lower lip when he feels Peter’s thumbs dip down between the cheeks of his ass and pry him wide open, baring his hole to Peter's hot gaze.

Johnny shivers when he feels Peter’s thumb circling around his hole, so close to where Johnny wants him. Johnny wants him to push inside—wants to feel _full_ with Peter’s fingers, his cock, anything Peter sees fit to put in the space inside of Johnny that belongs to Peter.

“You...really wax everywhere,” Peter says hoarsely. “I always thought you were exaggerating. It looks...it looks...”

Johnny’s eye slits open. He doesn’t know what to make of the heat he sees plainly in Peter’s eyes and is even more lost when Peter lowers his mouth to Johnny’s ass and _licks_.

Johnny keens, hot and hungry for more. "Oh, _god_!"

Peter stops to make sure it’s okay. “Yes?” he says. “Is it all right if I keep going?”

”If you stop,” Johnny threatens, half out of breath already, “I’ll set you on fire.”

Johnny arches his back and moans shamelessly at the relentless, slow wet slide of Peter's tongue over the cleft of his ass. 

Peter is frustratingly slow and teasing at first, but that doesn't last long. Soon' Peter's spreading Johnny's ass open with strong, calloused fingers that dig into Johnny's skin hard enough that he knows that they're going to leave marks, diving in as though he’s a starving man, Johnny a bounteous feast.

Johnny melts bonelessly into the sheets beneath the insistent ministrations of Peter's wet tongue, thighs tensing and quaking with each new flick of Peter's tongue, at the trail of Peter's saliva that he can feel dripping slowly down his ass, towards Peter's silky white sheets. God, they're going to be ruined after this.

Johnny’s brain all but short circuits at the first, insistent push of Peter’s tongue inside his hole.

Peter can’t get it in too far—Johnny’s hole is too tight.

”You’re so _tight_ ,” Peter says roughly, dipping forward to kiss—no, _claim_ —Johnny's mouth possessively, and Johnny moans at the bitter taste of Peter's tongue, at what it _means_. “Tight for _me_. It really has been a long time since anyone fucked you.”

"At this pace," Johnny says defiantly. "It's going to keep being a long time."

"Are you trying to tell me something, Storm?" Peter smiles. 

"Yeah," Johnny huffs. "Hurry up before I set you on fire."

Peter's mouth finds Johnny's again, and this time, it's rough, biting—Peter's teeth dragging almost painfully along Johnny's lower lip.

Oh, that is going to _bruise_.

"Johnny," Peter says. "Who's in charge? Who decides when and how you get fucked?"

Johnny wishes he had the self-control to keep himself from shuddering too obviously, but he doesn't. He shuts his eyes—it's too much. It's all too much.

"Johnny," Peter says, blunt nails digging harshly into the soft flesh of Johnny's right thigh. "I asked you a question."

Johnny swallows and scrunches his eyes tightly shut. "You. Peter, you do."

"Good," Peter praises, and Johnny silently prays that Peter doesn't notice how it makes his cock twitch. "Good boy."

Peter goes for it this time, spreading Johnny open so wide that it aches—and this time he forces his tongue inside of Johnny, making Johnny cry out, wild and desperate for more. Soon Johnny hears the familiar click of a bottle of lube, and Peter's tongue is joined by Peter's slick fingers—first one, then two, prying Johnny open to make room for Peter's cock.

Bent in half as he is, Johnny's range of movement is limited—he rocks back into Peter's tongue and fingers as best he can, clenches and clenches tight as a vise around them as Peter fucks them in and out of Johnny, spreading him open so wide, but all he can do is lie there and take whatever Peter sees fit to give him. 

It's heady, it's thrilling, Johnny wishes it would never end. But he needs _more_.

"Peter," he gasps. He should be embarrassed to be begging, but he's so turned on it doesn't matter anymore. He _needs_ Peter, and that's all he knows, all he cares about. "Fuck me, please, I need you."

Peter moves up the bed to settle between Johnny's legs, spread so wide they are shaking with the effort, and kiss Johnny messily, chin wet with spit, smearing Johnny's face with it. "Love it when you beg."

Does he? Johnny can do that, Johnny can beg. Anything to get Peter's cock inside of him. "Please," he says. "Peter. Please fuck me."

Peter kisses him again, fucking his tongue into Johnny's mouth the way he'd been pushing it into Johnny's ass moments ago, and it's filthy, so filthy it makes Johnny moan.

"Yeah," Peter says. "Yes. I think you're—you're ready for me."

Peter leans over to fish one of the condoms off the bed, but Johnny catches his wrist to stop him. If this is going to be the only time—Johnny wants to feel every inch of him, know what it is to have Peter's come burning inside of him like a brand, telling everyone that he belongs, every inch of him, to Peter. "No," he says. "You don't need one. I can...boil my blood. Can't catch STDs."

Peter's eyebrows go up. "But...the mess."

Johnny's fingers tighten around Peter's wrist, almost imperceptibly. He struggles to come up with a reply that isn't too...revealing. "I like it messy, Pete. Don't."

Peter's throat works like he's trying to find something to say to that, but at last, he gives up, nods, and lets the condom slip from his fingers.

Peter moves back to line his cock up with Johnny's hole. 

Johnny stops him before he pushes in. There's something he has to ask first. If this is the only night he's going to get to have Peter...he wants...he _needs_ — "Peter," he says, "hold me down again. Please."

Peter makes a noise like a wounded animal and kisses Johnny. "You liked that? You liked that?"

"Yes. Do it again."

"I have a better idea," Peter says, reaches into his nightstand, and pulls out a webshooter.

Peter is—he's a certified genius. Smartest man Johnny's ever met. "Oh," Johnny says breathlessly. "Oh, yes."

This has featured largely in every fantasy he's ever had about Peter, and it's thrilling to know Peter actually...actually uses his webs during sex.

He lifts his hands and places them on the cool wood of Peter's headboard, waiting for Peter to web them in place.

He'd laugh at the way Peter fumbles to snap it shut around his wrist, but he's too busy being impatient. 

 _Thwip_ goes the webshooter, and then there are cool strands of Peter's webfluid holding him in place.

Johnny flexes his wrists to test how much give he has, but, no, there's nothing. He is trapped. "Oh," Johnny breathes. " _Oh_."

Peter kisses him roughly. "You like that. You like that."

"Peter," Johnny says into Peter's mouth between Peter's biting kisses. "Please."

He's so desperate for Peter's cock he doesn't know what he'll do. What he'd do if Peter just got up and left him here. Scream and cry and beg. 

Peter slicks up his cock and lines himself up, and Johnny is so open and wet after being eaten out and fingered that Peter sinks into him easily.

Johnny moans at the glorious feeling of being stretched so  _full_ so suddenly and digs the heels of his feet into the small of Peter's back to urge him on. He wants him to _move_ already.

Peter fucks him _slow_ at first, every push-pull of his deliciously thick cock enough to make Johnny moan, his toes curl in ecstasy.

Every time Johnny instinctively tries to reach down to cling to Peter, he's stymied by the webs wrapped tight around his wrists, and the reminder that he's so utterly at Peter's mercy only turns him on more.

Peter's iron self-control is admirable, but it doesn't last long. He's been on edge too, focusing on Johnny's pleasure rather than his own, but there's only so long he can last when Johnny's clenching down, hot, tight, and eager, around his cock.

Peter loses it when Johnny bites down roughly on Peter's shoulder, desperate for something to hang onto. Peter curses, and he shifts so he can grasp Johnny's ass with one hand and lift it to the perfect height, and grab onto the headboard with the other, and then he's slamming into Johnny, hard and rough and bone-jarring, and it's _perfect_.

It's good, _too_ good, and it takes Johnny's sex and hormone-addled brain a few moments to figure out why—Peter's fucking a little too hard, a little too fast, for an ordinary human. Not enough to cause irreparable damage, but enough to remind Johnny that Peter could easily split him in two with the strong hands that are holding Johnny open, leaving Johnny helpless to do anything but lie there and let Peter take him the way he was always meant to be taken, and Johnny clamps down so hard around Peter's cock at the thought that it makes Peter curse and fuck Johnny harder.

In the end, Peter doesn't even have to touch Johnny's cock to make him come—all it takes is a thrust hard enough to make Johnny see stars and then Johnny's bucking and thrashing and spilling all over himself, hole squeezing tight enough around Peter to make Peter _whine_.

Peter fucks him through his orgasm but doesn't stop, doesn't go any easier on Johnny. He holds Johnny's hips in place and hammers into him, hips wild, hunting desperately for his own orgasm.

It doesn't take long at all for Peter thrust in hard, his hips grow still, his cock twitching as he spills deep inside of Johnny. 

Peter is _beautiful_ when he comes, his face contorted in bliss. Johnny wishes he could take a picture of it, so he could look at it when he's feeling depressed and remind himself that it was _him—_ his body—that gave Peter that pleasure.

Johnny shudders and gasps and enjoys the heady feeling of being filled to bursting with Peter's come. It's too good. Too much. Everything about this.

Peter slumps on top of Johnny when it's over, crushing him into the mattress, face tucked against Johnny's neck, and takes a beat to catch his breath. 

He's flushed and sweating and _Johnny did that_. Johnny's the one who left Peter looking so wrecked.

"Hey," Johnny says, nudging Peter with his foot. "How about you let me outta these webs now?"

"I dunno if I should," Peter smiles into Johnny's neck. "Maybe I'll just leave you there all night."

"You wouldn't," Johnny says.

"So I can have my way with you whenever I want."

"Oh," Johnny says, feeling his face grow hot. "I'm okay with that."

* * *

Peter does fuck Johnny once more that night, and that time Peter decides to keep Johnny belly down on his sheets, ass raised high on a pillow wedged under his hips. Peter webs Johnny's wrists to the headboard again and keeps a hand pressed to the nape of Johnny's neck to keep him where he wants him.

Johnny gasps and moans and bites at the sheets as Peter rams into him hard enough to keep the headboard banging out a steady rhythm against Peter's white walls.

His orgasm engulfs him in a wave of searing, white-hot pleasure, and it's good, so good, so _good_. Johnny's glad that Peter can't see his face when he's facedown like this, so Johnny doesn't have to worry about hiding how much he's enjoying this.

Johnny doesn't know how he'll ever be able to have sex with anyone ever again. Peter has ruined him for everyone else.

* * *

Johnny slips out of Peter’s apartment in the small hours of the morning, while Peter’s still asleep.

He wants to avoid any awkward morning-after conversations. This is better, he thinks.

It’ll feel less like he’s in a relationship with Peter this way. Especially if Peter doesn’t cook him breakfast. Well. Serve him breakfast out of a cereal box and a carton of milk.

It'd be too easy, he thinks, to pretend that Peter is his. He has to be careful to keep that from happening, or his broken heart when all of this is over will be so much _worse_.

* * *

One day goes by, then another, without any word from Peter. Normally they’ll text every now and then—when Peter’s on flights, or between meetings, he’ll shoot off a quick text to Johnny, or call, just to make sure Johnny’s okay, but now there’s nothing.

Complete silence.

Johnny doesn’t know what to do. Has he ruined everything between them? Fifteen years of friendship, lost because of one night of passion?

It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth it. Johnny would give anything to take it back.

It was stupid. _He_ was stupid. As usual. When is he not? This is why. This is how he loses people. He does stupid things, he doesn’t think—Reed was always telling him he needed to think before he acted, but he never listened, and now he is paying the terrible, terrible consequences.

He can't stop thinking about it, though—how _good_ it all was, how  _right_  getting fucked by Peter felt, and he doesn't know what he'll do now that...it'll probably never happen again.

He fingers and fucks himself every night with a dildo, imagining each time that it's Peter's cock, but it isn't the same, isn't as satisfying, as having Peter, his mouth and hands and cock, on him and in him. 

An entire _week_ passes that way, then another. Two weeks filled with Johnny tearing himself down and worrying incessantly over whether he has lost his very best friend, the man who has stood by his side through thick and thin, but not this, not this.

Then two weeks to the day, out of nowhere, he gets a text from Peter asking if he’s free to hang out for lunch.

* * *

Peter’s waiting on their customary window ledge with a pile of hot dogs and two sodas.

“Hey, Torch,” Peter says neutrally, face hidden beneath his mask. “Sit down and have some hot dogs.”

Johnny can’t tell—is he angry? Upset? Weirded out? Normally he knows. Normally he can tell—the quirk of an eyebrow, the hunch of a shoulder—normally he knows everything going on in that head, but not today, not when it counts.

They eat in silence. An awkward, unusual, painful silence.

Normally, they cannot stop trading jokes and insults, but today, Johnny can’t think of anything to say.

He opens his mouth to try three separate times, but loses courage. No, that’s stupid. No, Peter doesn’t care about Johnny’s triumphant purchase of a new pair of shoes. No, Peter would laugh at that story, and not in a good way.

He gives up. Instead, he listlessly watches the minuscule figures of the people walking past them on the street far beneath his dangling feet and wonders if any of them have ever had an ill-advised one-night stand with their best friend, or if this is a fuck-up unique to Johnny.

How do you get past that? He wishes there was someone besides Peter he could talk to about this, but there isn’t anyone.

Johnny cannot take the silence anymore. He will scream, he will shout, he will tell Peter everything if there’s another second of silence. He takes a deep breath and says, “Wow. So we got, uh, really drunk on movie night, didn’t we?”

Peter lowers his hot dog but doesn’t turn to look at Johnny. Is he embarrassed? Can he not face Johnny after that night? Is it too awkward now?

“Yeah,” Peter says, uncharacteristically subdued and serious. “I guess we did.”

He doesn’t say anything else. Oh, god. Can’t he help Johnny out a little bit?

Johnny has to do _something_ , so he sticks his hand out and says, “We pretend it never happened?”

He’s hoping Peter will be offended, hoping Peter will slap his hand away, take him in his arms, and say he loves Johnny, he wants Johnny, he can’t live without him.

That’s not what happens.

Peter purses his lips. “That’s what you want?”

No, not at all. “Yeah,” Johnny confirms. “So things between us can stop being weird.”

“Right,” Peter says quietly. “Weird. Of course.”

He shakes Johnny’s hand.

That, Johnny supposes, is that.

* * *

They meet up for a movie night—one that Johnny expects will be significantly less enjoyable than the last—three days later.

Johnny’s heart is beating a little bit _too_ quickly as he flies over to the Baxter Building, but once he gets there…everything is normal. Peter jokes around and behaves as though…nothing at all happened.

It feels forced, somehow, as though Peter is trying too hard to be normal. It isn’t working.

Johnny’s disappointed. This is what he asked for, but he’s disappointed.

They end up choosing a film neither of them have seen before…and realize too late that it's a mistake. It is racier than they had realized.

Steamy sex scene after steamy sex scene. Johnny’s not sure they didn’t accidentally order porn.

Worse yet, the actors bear a not insignificant resemblance to Peter and Johnny—one fair-haired and slender, the other brunet and muscular.

Johnny can feel the heat rising to his face, his pants growing uncomfortably tight. Oh, god, when is this torture going to end?

There’s an unexpected weight on his thigh, and when he looks down, he discovers it’s Peter’s hand. Johnny blinks at Peter. “What?”

Peter says, voice low, “Johnny. I know you said no more, but…can we…?”

It’s a bad idea. A _very_ bad idea. Johnny should say no. His mind is painfully aware of that. Unfortunately, his heart and his cock both disagree.

“Yes,” Johnny finds himself saying, and then he’s rising to his feet, tugging his shirt over his head, and heading for Peter’s bedroom with embarrassing eagerness.

He doesn’t make it all the way—Peter catches his hand and pulls him into a heated kiss, as though he can’t bear to wait until he gets Johnny into a bed.

Peter’s hands rove everywhere, his mouth burning hot as it hungrily devours Johnny’s.

Johnny groans shamelessly when Peter slams him back against the wall bone-jarringly hard.

Peter tears Johnny’s shirt off of his body one sharp pull, and his pants follow quickly behind them. Johnny'd be angry if he weren't so turned on by it.

Peter turns Johnny around, presses him against the wall, hauls his hips back, and kicks his legs open wide.

"Are you going to do what I tell you?" Peter whispers, breath hot against Johnny's neck. "Are you going to be good for me the way you were last time?"

Johnny moans. Oh, god, yes. 

Peter pinches his ass roughly. "Johnny. Answer me."

"Yes," Johnny hisses. "Anything."

"Then stay here, where I put you," Peter orders. "Don't move."

Johnny gulps, but nods. "Yes."

Peter's hands vanish, his footsteps fade into the distance. Johnny stays, shivering, where Peter left him, waiting for him to return. Is he just going to _leave_ Johnny here, waiting breathlessly for Peter to come back and fuck him?

Johnny shudders. 

Peter returns moments later with a bottle of lube and drops a kiss between Johnny's shoulder blades. "Good boy," he says. 

Johnny moans before he can stop himself. He can hear Peter grow still behind him, and then curse. "You like that," he says, and it's not a question. "When I call you that."

Johnny nods. There's no point in denying it.

Peter curses again, and then his fingers are there, pressing into Johnny's hole opening him up roughly, sloppily, as though he can't wait to get inside of Johnny. There’s too much lube and it drips down Johnny’s thighs, and Johnny’s stretched open hastily enough that he knows he’ll feel it when Peter presses in.

Peter bites rough kisses onto Johnny's neck and shoulders, and Johnny lets him, even though he knows it'll leave marks where everyone will be able to see them.

Johnny whines when Peter's fingers disappear and leave him open, but then Peter's turning him around, and Johnny gasps when Peter’s hand slide down the backs of Johnny’s thighs and squeeze, and Johnny understands. He hops up, wraps his legs around Peter’s waist, and moans in delight at the sharp burn of Peter’s cock pressing into him with not-quite-enough preparation.

Johnny twists the fingers of one hand in the back of Peter’s shirt and the other in his hair and holds on for dear life while Peter pushes into him.

"Tight," Peter hisses, "you're always so _tight_."

Peter's hips start to move leisurely, giving Johnny time to adjust to being full, but when Johnny starts to moan, Peter starts to _move_.

There’s not much he can do other than _take_ what Peter gives him, especially after Peter’s hands find their way to his thighs and hold him, spread open, against the wall, so that Johnny has no control, none at all, over how he gets fucked.

 _Peter’s_ in control here, and just the thought makes Johnny feel gloriously wild and debauched.

This is filthy— _so_ filthy. Johnny feels like—he doesn’t know what. All he knows is that Peter’s fully dressed while he's completely naked and moaning and writhing obscenely on the end of Peter’s cock like he was made for this. And maybe he was.

Peter’s quiet as he fucks Johnny, grunting into Johnny’s ear with every sharp snap of his hips, but Johnny can’t help himself—he knows he’s being embarrassingly loud, knows half of Manhattan can probably hear him, but he’s been dying for this for  _weeks_ and Peter’s got an uncanny knack for nailing his prostate.

Peter covers Johnny’s mouth with his own, swallowing Johnny’s cries of pleasure as he holds Johnny open and slams into Johnny mercilessly, over and over again, and Johnny’s close, so _close_.

“Peter,” he pants. “Peter, I need—”

“C’mon,” Peter says, breath hot against Johnny’s neck, fingers digging in too tightly, rewarding Johnny with a deep, hard thrust that makes Johnny’s toes curl. “C’mon. Let me hear you, let me feel you, be good for me, can you be good for me, come, Johnny, come for me—“

“ _Peter_ ,” Johnny gasps and comes. That was what he’d been waiting for, he realizes. Permission. He opens his mouth to scream but there’s no sound, none at all because he’s coming so hard the muscles in his throat have locked up. He can feel himself clenching down, tight as a vise, around Peter’s cock.

Peter shoves in bone-jarringly hard one last time and comes with a low groan.

Peter’s knees give out and they both sag down to the floor, Peter collapsing backward, arm covering his face, as he tries to steady his breathing, while Johnny slouches on top of him.

“Okay," Johnny says, clenching down around Peter, Peter's come leaving a sticky trail down Johnny's thighs and pooling in the hot little space between them, "now _that_ was the last time."

“Probably a good idea,” Peter says, and flips them over, mouth feverishly hot against Johnny’s neck, grinding his softening erection into Johnny and making Johnny gasp at the waves of warm pleasure that wash over him.

* * *

Peter fucks Johnny twice more that night, and Johnny can't get enough.

He's not sure he ever will find the limits of his all-consuming desire for Peter.

* * *

Johnny wishes he could say that he was wise enough to make sure that night, at least, was the last, but he can't.

They have sex on five separate occasions over the next two weeks, and every time they do, Johnny warns Peter that it’s absolutely the last time.

But Johnny is weak, so weak—all it takes is Peter’s lips on his neck, Peter’s fingers brushing against his, Peter whispering _do you want to be good for me tonight?_ and Johnny caves.

This is a bad idea. Worse yet, Johnny _knows_ it’s a bad idea. He knows that this can only end in disaster.

Johnny already knows how this will end. He can see it, clearly. Peter is going to tell the person he loves, the person he keeps imagining in Johnny’s place, how he feels, and leave Johnny heartbroken. 

There's no way this ends well for Johnny. But...how can he turn down the chance to sleep with Peter?

Johnny doesn’t know how to do that. 

* * *

He resolves after it's happened eight times—with no indication that it will stop happening—that he has to tell Peter it's over and be firm about it this time.

He spends the next week rehearsing everything he’s going to say to Peter in the mirror. He has his whole speech down pat. 

* * *

Johnny’s going to tell him. Tonight. He’s going to tell Peter that it’s over, that he can’t do this anymore, that it’s agony, it’s torture.

His resolve lasts until Peter gets his hands on him, and then the next thing he knows, he’s on his knees, naked, between Peter’s spread thighs, moaning around Peter’s cock, eyes riveted on Peter’s face. He can never get enough of watching Peter’s eyes fall shut from the pleasure he’s taking from Johnny’s willing body. 

There's a part of Johnny that never feels more complete or at peace than when he's with Peter, but there's another part that wonders with every touch, every caress, every kiss, who it is that Peter is imagining in Johnny's place, who it is that he truly loves, and that's the part that is willing to give Peter anything in the hopes that it might one day be him that Peter's thinking of.

Peter shoves Johnny forcefully to the floor, but Johnny doesn’t complain about the rough treatment. He likes it.

So he gasps, clutches the carpet, and drops his legs open, waiting for Peter to come and take and _take_ —anything he wants, anything Johnny has to give—from Johnny.

Peter curses beneath his breath at the sight and he scrambles to get his cock inside of Johnny.

That’s how Johnny finds a sofa pillow wedged beneath his hips, Peter’s fingers digging into the flesh of his ass hard enough to bruise, while Peter hammers into him hard enough to make Johnny _howl_.

It’s too much, it’s not enough, it’s everything, it’s _perfect_. How can Johnny ever give this up?

He can’t. He can’t. He realizes then and there that he’ll keep coming back for more, time and again, as long as Peter still wants him.

Peter is like a drug, and Johnny is thoroughly, hopelessly addicted.

* * *

The nights are the worst. During the day, Johnny can surround himself with people, keep himself busy, and stop himself from thinking about his family.

It's only when he's lying in his bed alone at night that the memories rise, unbidden, to his mind, and he cannot seem to shake them.

This particular night, he hasn't been able to stop thinking about the day little Franklin was born. The way Sue had beamed at them, weary and disheveled but also happier and more beautiful than Johnny'd ever seen her, from her hospital bed, her new son sleeping peacefully in her arms. Then there'd been Reed's unending joy, gratitude, and wonder at the sight of his son. 

They had all been so blessed. 

He remembers watching Franklin grow up—his first smile, his first laugh, his first word, his first step—Johnny had been there for all of them.

He never thought he'd lose Franklin someday. Never thought that'd be all there was.

He doesn't know how he'll ever heal—

His reverie is interrupted by the sound of his doorbell ringing. 

Johnny grabs his phone, checks the time, and frowns. Who the hell is ringing his doorbell at 2 a.m.?

He throws off the covers and pads, barefoot, to the front door, and opens it, only to find Peter leaning casually in the doorway. 

“I called first,” Peter says, “but you didn’t answer. So I came over anyway.”

“At least you used the door instead of the window this time,” Johnny says.

Johnny should tell Peter to go away, but he doesn’t. He lets Peter into his apartment, into his bed, into his _body_ without a word of complaint.

Peter spreads Johnny out on his bed, the sheets cool and silky beneath him, Peter hot and fiery above, and fucks him until Johnny's whole world narrows down to Peter.

Peter is rougher on Johnny than he normally is.

He tosses Johnny around on the bed as though he were a doll, positions him any way he likes, bites hard enough to make Johnny moan and arch into his touch, digs his fingers into Johnny’s thighs, and, best of all, fucks Johnny into the mattress with enough force to make the bed buckle and shake.

Johnny’s going to be covered in bruises and bite marks tomorrow.

He doesn’t think he’s ever come harder in his life.

* * *

Peter notices.

After that night, Peter nearly always leaves marks, bruises, and bites to ensure that Johnny will carry reminders of where and how Peter touched, emblazoned on his body.

Every single one feels like a message, conveying to Johnny, to everyone who sees them, that he is _Peter’s,_ Peter’s to kiss, Peter’s to touch, Peter’s to fuck, and Peter’s alone.

Johnny cannot get enough of feeling that he belongs, body and soul, to Peter.

* * *

Johnny can't stop thinking about Sue. 

She cared about Johnny, so much, and Johnny always took it for granted. 

He misses it. He misses the way she always looked out for him, always took care of him, always lectured him when he misbehaved.

God, he even misses her terrible cooking. If he ever sees her again, he will eat anything she puts in front of him, and he will be grateful for it. Grateful for _her_.

If he ever sees her again, he'll tell her how much he loves her, how grateful he is that she cares about him enough to mother him, even if he is thirty and doesn't need it anymore.

If he ever sees her again, he'll sweep her into a hug and never let her go.

There's a rap at his door, and Johnny knows who it's going to be before he even opens it.

Peter is standing in Johnny's hallway and, mystifyingly, holding a large brown paper bag. 

Johnny raises his eyebrows quizzically.

"I know," Peter says quickly. "I know. Why am I here? Well, see, I was in the neighborhood, and I thought my old buddy Torch might be hungry."

"It's midnight."

"So it's a midnight snack. Those are a thing. That people eat. Including me. It's not weird at all." 

The weirdest part is that Johnny...is hungry. Which he hadn't noticed.

Come to think of it, he's...not sure he remembered to eat today. That's been happening more often lately. He just...doesn't see the point in cooking when it's just for him.

Johnny eyes the offending bag of food suspiciously. "What'd you bring? Better be good, Parker."

Peter smirks. He knows he's in. "Sandwiches."

"I like sandwiches," Johnny says and moves aside, motioning for Peter to come in.

They sit on Johnny's couch, and Peter hands Johnny a sandwich in a transparent plastic sandwich bag.

"Seriously?" Johnny says flatly. "A sandwich in a bag?"

"Just...try one," Peter says, so Johnny does.

Peter's sandwiches are disgusting. The worst Johnny's ever had.

They also make Johnny get all misty-eyed. "These taste exactly like Sue's."

"Do they?" Peter says. "Huh. Whaddya know."

"Oh my god," Johnny says, examining the sandwich from all angles, "how did you know how to  _make_ these?"

"It's easy. I made a sandwich, and I did everything wrong that I could think of."

"But they taste _exactly_ like Sue's."

Peter sighs. "Okay," he admits. "So Sue and I used to hang out a lot when you were...uh, when I was on the team. I watched her make a whole lotta sandwiches. Well. I watched her do everything wrong while making a whole lotta sandwiches. It wasn't too hard to remember."

"Yeah," Johnny says, smiling wistfully at his sandwich. "She was terrible at food."

"The worst," Peter agrees.

Johnny smiles gratefully at Peter. "You made these for me?"

"Yeah," Peter says reluctantly. "Thought you'd get a kick outta them." He scoots his own sandwich towards Johnny. "Take my sandwich, please."

Johnny does. "Peter, this was—it was really nice of you."

"Aw, it was nothin', Torchy," Peter says dismissively. "Really."

Johnny is so...touched that Peter would do this for him. He smooths his hand seductively up Peter's muscular chest and says, "Pete. You should...let me say thank you."

"Well," Peter says weakly. "If you insist."

"Believe me," Johnny says, moving to straddle Peter, "I insist."

* * *

Peter lets Johnny ride him, hard and fast, until they're both flushed and panting and Johnny’s thighs are shaking with the effort, and then Peter throws Johnny down onto the couch cushions and pounds into Johnny vigorously, so that all Johnny can do is hold on and moan until he's coming and coming all over himself. 

* * *

Johnny opens the door another night to find Peter, leaning in his doorway and wearing a striped, green-and-orange button-down shirt that is the worst thing Johnny’s ever seen, but also the best because of who it brought with it.

He wrinkles his nose in disgust. “That is the ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Yeah?” Peter grins, hands on Johnny’s waist as he crowds him back into his apartment. “Why don’t you take it off of me?”

Peter takes his time and eats Johnny out leisurely, for what feels like hours, until Johnny spills all over his sheets at the slightest brush of Peter’s fingers against his cock.

”Johnny,” Peter asks afterward, dropping a kiss between Johnny’s shoulder blades, “can I still...”

Johnny rolls his hips invitingly. “Pete,” he says, voice thick with want.

Peter curses, and Johnny feels Peter’s hands gripping his raised hips, the blunt head of his cock pressing against him, in and in and in, until Johnny is _full_ , so deliciously full.

Johnny’s fingers tighten in the sheets and he moans. He wishes Peter would hold him down again.

Peter curses again, and then he’s covering Johnny with his body and pressing him down into the sheets, mouth hot against Johnny’s neck, hands pinning him down at the wrists. Johnny gasps with pleasure at his newfound immobility, and arches up to meet Peter— _this,_ this is exactly what he wanted.

Peter fucks him slowly, meticulously, making Johnny moan with each thrust, and he doesn’t stop until he makes Johnny come again.

It occurs to Johnny, several hours later, when he’s on the verge of falling asleep, that Peter must have worn his shirt on purpose, just because he knew Johnny’d say that. He whacks Peter, who is slumbering next to him, in the face with his pillow.

Peter doesn’t even have the decency to wake up. 

* * *

Then comes the night—the horrible, horrible night—when Johnny’s mind is taken over by the Red Skull.

Johnny is a prisoner in his own body, his worst fears realized—he and his powers are used as deadly weapons against the people he loves. Against the only person he has left.

“I think I’ll let Johnny Storm watch as he roasts you,” the Red Skull says to Peter with Johnny’s mouth.

Johnny struggles and screams and fights to escape the prison of his own mind, but it is useless—he can see what is happening around him, he can feel every second of it, but he can do nothing, nothing to stop his body from doing the Red Skull’s bidding.

Miraculously, Peter escapes with the help of a nearby fire hydrant, but the Red Skull gives Johnny no reprieve.

He forces Johnny to pick up a daggerlike shard of glass and tells Peter that he’s going to make him watch while Johnny plunges it into his own body.

Johnny would cry were his body his own to control, because if he dies here, like this, he’ll never get the chance to hold Peter again, to kiss him…never get to tell him he loves him.

Why didn’t he ever tell him? God, he’s been a coward. He realizes that it doesn’t matter if Peter says no—Johnny doesn’t care. He just needs Peter to know.

He needs to summon up the courage to look into Peter’s eyes and tell him he loves him, no matter what happens afterward.

If he gets out of this, he swears to himself, he’ll tell Peter. He can’t die without Peter knowing. It can’t happen.

The dagger of glass rises in Johnny’s hand despite Johnny’s herculean efforts to prevent it, and Johnny understands in flash that there is every possibility that it could. He’s died before. So many times. So has Peter. Life is so fragile, so delicate, subject to the whims of time and fate far beyond any one man’s control. Wait to tell the people you love how you feel about them, and it will be too late.

Why didn’t Johnny ever tell Peter he loves him? All of his reasons seem so trivial, so meaningless now. They’re frivolous excuses, nothing more.

Johnny tries desperately to make his mouth work. He is wholly indifferent about the prospect of his own death—there have been so many times that he’s longed for the blissful oblivion of death, and he is all too familiar with its cold sting ever since his time in Annihilus’ prison—but he can’t, he _won’t_ die, not now, not when there’s every possibility that he will remain dead and he will _never_ be able to tell Peter how he feels.

He hears Peter’s anguished scream, feels the sticky tendrils of Peter’s webs enveloping him, and would breathe a sigh of relief, were his lungs his.

After it’s all over, the Red Skull defeated, and Johnny’s hunched over on the sidewalk, doing his best to force himself to breathe evenly, Peter comforts Johnny by rubbing his back and asks Johnny to come home with him.

Johnny says yes.

He doesn’t want to be alone. He wants—no, _needs_ —to get out of his head. He needs to stop seeing, every time he closes his eyes, the faces of Reed, Sue, Ben, Valeria, and Franklin, all aflame, turning to dust and bone because of him.

He needs Peter’s touch, Peter’s mouth, Peter’s body, to soothe him, to bring him peace.

* * *

There’s something different about the sex they have that night.

Peter presses Johnny against the door and starts kissing him, hot and desperate, hands roving everywhere, the moment they’re inside.

The first time, they’re both wild with their need to touch, to kiss, to fuck, but the second is slower…sweeter…almost…reverent.

It doesn’t…feel like sex. There is nothing casual about it. For the first time since they started this whole mess, it feels like they’re making love.

* * *

Johnny’s not sure if he’s welcome to stay the night, doesn’t want to ruin what they had, so he slips out of bed, but he’s stopped by a something catching his elbow.

Johnny looks down, bemused, to discover that Peter’s holding him in place, looking up at him beseechingly in the darkness.

“Don’t go,” Peter pleads, voice rough with sleep. “Johnny. Stay with me.”

Johnny doesn’t know what to say, so he nods and settles back down against the sheets.

He doesn’t know what to make of it when Peter slides over and curls around him, tosses a leg over Johnny’s, as though he wants to make sure Johnny stays there, in his arms, forever.

Johnny’s heart is full to bursting.

* * *

Johnny watches Peter the next morning over breakfast—french toast and orange juice, which Johnny fixes just the way Peter likes—and searches for a sign that anything is different.

Peter's quiet, more pensive than usual, as though he has something on his mind.

Johnny grows tired of waiting. He has to say something, no matter what the consequences are.

“Peter, about last night—“ is all he manages to get out before Peter stops him.

"You don't have to say it," Peter says quietly, eyes downcast. "I know. I stepped over the line. You've been very clear about wanting to keep things casual, and I got...too swept up in how I feel about you. I'm sorry if it was too much, but I almost lost you last night. If I'd been any slower, you could have—" He seems at a loss for words. His throat works until he gathers himself together enough to continue. "Johnny. There's something I've been wanting to say to you for a long time. I know you're still getting over Medusa and that you aren't ready for a relationship yet, but...do you think...when you are...do you think there's any chance that...you could give me a chance? I don't--you don't need to answer now, and if the answer's no, that's okay, but...I love you, Johnny."

No, no, no! Those are Johnny’s words, coming out of Peter’s mouth.

“Wow,” Johnny says, shaking his head incredulously. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me.”

The light that had been in Peter’s eyes flickers and dies. “Johnny,” he says, “I can’t help it, that’s how I feel—“

“No, you idiot,” Johnny says. “I mean I can’t believe you’d just steal the speech I’ve been wanting to say to you for years like that. Not cool, dude.”

It happens too fast for Johnny to even register—one second he’s smiling wryly at Peter across the table, the next he’s being swept up into Peter’s arms and kissed within an inch of his life.

“So you—" Peter says, breathless with excitement. "Say it, Johnny, I need to hear you say it.”

Johnny says the words he's been waiting to say to Peter for a decade. “I love you, you moron.”

Peter smiles, content, and presses his forehead against Johnny’s. “I love you too.”

Peter leans forward to kiss Johnny again, but Johnny stops him.

"Wait," he says. Oh, he has got to know the answer to this. "Our first kiss. Or, well, second. Who were...you thinking about when you kissed me?"

Peter frowns like he doesn't understand why Johnny's asking. "You," he says, baffled. "Who else?"

That had been—that _passion_ it was—it was all for Johnny?

"You...really do love me," Johnny says. He still can't really believe any of this is happening.

Peter makes a show of rolling his eyes. "What am I going to have to do to convince you?"

Johnny smiles, slow and filthy. "Oh, I can think of several things."

"Deal," Peter smiles, and kisses him. 

* * *

"You know," Peter says as he helps Johnny pack up all of his belongings two days later so he can move back into the Baxter Building with Peter, "when you said 'several things,' I really thought you meant sex. Not help with moving."

"I did mean sex," Johnny clarifies as he carefully packs all of his favorite shoes in a box, "but we've been having sex all weekend. I am all sexed out. Now it's time for you to do regular boyfriend things."

Peter wraps his arms around Johnny, presses his long, lean body flush against Johnny's back, and mouths expertly up his neck. He feels _so good_ , and he knows, by now, exactly how Johnny loves to be touched, how to ensure that he _melts_. Which he does, with a pleased sigh.

"You sure about that, Matchstick?" Peter smiles, sinking his teeth into Johnny's earlobe.

Johnny turns around in Peter's arms and says, "I hate you," right before he kisses Peter.

Peter steers Johnny back towards the bed—only a bare mattress, now that the sheets have all been packed and put away—and lowers him down onto it.

"Let's see if I can't make you change your mind," Peter grins, and kisses Johnny.

* * *

Later that night, Johnny's got his head tucked into the curve of Peter's shoulder as they lie tangled together in Peter's bed, Johnny's belongings intermingled with Peter in the room around them. 

They're watching a movie together on Peter's absurdly large television and relaxing after a long day of packing and moving Johnny's belongings back home, which was interrupted, because of course it was, by an attack by the Trapster, who got his stupid paste all over Johnny's things, and figuring out how to get it off had been a whole other adventure. 

Peter's brushing his fingers through Johnny's hair, and Johnny's never felt more content, more at peace.

"You know," Johnny says, "I'm really glad I started all of this."

Peter cranes his neck so he can give Johnny a disapproving look. "You mean you're glad  _I_ started it."

"What? No. No, no, no. Don't pretend. I propositioned _you_ for sex, Parker."

"But I asked _you_ if I could kiss you. And the whole time we were..."

"Fucking," Johnny supplies.

"You kept...leaving. In the middle of the night. Without saying anything. And every time, you'd say it was the last time and we couldn't do it anymore. I was the one who kept things going."

"I said that because...it was hard having sex with you without letting you know I loved you. And I left because I didn't want to fool myself that we were dating. I...kind of thought you were in love with someone else."

Peter snorts. "What? Who else would I be in love with?"

"I don't know," Johnny says. "Someone who wasn't me."

"Is that...what you thought when I kissed you the second time? You thought it was all for someone else?"

"Yeah. I did. Guess I...couldn't believe you'd fall for me after all this time. Still kinda having a hard time believing it, babe."

Peter's quiet for a moment. "You set off my Spidey sense, you know. The only other person who's ever done that is Mary Jane, and I almost married her. It only happens with the people...I love more than anything. People who are part of me. So I do love you. I really, really do."

Johnny peers up into Peter's face. "What...exactly does that mean, that I set off your Spidey sense?"

"Like with the Red Skull...when you were...when he was going to make you hurt yourself, it felt like it was happening to me. Like I was the one in danger. But...it's not just that, Johnny. I...can feel what you're feeling. I can tell what you're doing. I can't read your mind or anything, but...I...if I concentrate I can sense you, no matter where you go. How you're feeling too. Normally it's only if I concentrate, but...sometimes if your feelings are especially loud, I'll hear them whether I want to or not. That's why...all those times I showed up at your place. That's why. You were so loud that you wouldn't let me sleep, so I figured I might as well keep you company." 

That's...the most incredibly romantic thing Johnny has ever heard in his life. "Huh," he says. "So what am I feeling right now?"

Peter shuts his eyes and tilts his head as though he is listening intently for a sound Johnny cannot hear.

Johnny turns his focus inward then and concentrates on the peace, contentment, joy, and, above all, _love_ that he is feeling in that moment.

Peter's eyes, when he opens them, are soft and full of love. Johnny is envious then, so envious, of Peter's powers—he wishes with all his heart that he could know for a fact what it is that Peter feels for him.

Peter's fingers are gentle as they caress Johnny's cheek. "I love you too, Johnny," he says, and Johnny _wants_.

"Pete," Johnny says, "Pete, can we—could we—?"

He doesn't need to say the words this time because Peter knows already what it is he wants, what he needs. He can feel it. 

Peter kisses Johnny tenderly then, and Johnny is surprised when he realizes that he feels  _happy_. Happier than he's felt since his family left him.

Everything in Johnny’s life _isn’t_ perfect. He will never stop missing his family and the life he once had, but Peter’s love helps ease his pain.

It’s not the same as the days when he had everything, but it is _something_. Someone he can cling to, rely on, confide in, and that’s enough for now. Better than he thought he’d ever have again.

Peter makes him feel loved, and wanted, and _needed_. He makes Johnny feel as though he _belongs_ —to someone, somewhere—and that, after all, is all he’s ever wanted. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find my tumblr [here](http://lamujerarana.tumblr.com/)!


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